The Jedi's Own
by danieljeyn
Summary: Luke Skywalker, Grey Jedi, is traveling the galaxy with a small team of followers. Diving further into study of the Force with the holocron of Kreia, he questions the meaning of the old orders of the Jedi and the Sith. Will he follow through and restore the Jedi as he promised? Only if he can survive a clash with a new band of Dark Siders, forged by Lord Cronal's experiments.
1. Chapter 01 :: Cyrkron

Chapter 01 :: Cyrkron

Varo was seething. The female Twi'Lek with green and yellow skin was the only alien among the crew of former stormtroopers calling themselves the Marauders. She was letting them have a piece of her mind as they were panting, catching their breath, using Imperial navy surplus towels to wipe the wax from their armor.

This was just before a blast hit the freighter hard enough that those gathered in the cargo hold lost their footing, each trooper flying against his nearest bulkhead. Bits of hull insulation puffed into the air, finally catching the g-forces, falling to the deck with a rattle.

Varo would later reflect that this was the moment their situation went from something merely bad to the unfolding, multi-level catastrophe they were faced with. They picked themselves off the deck and crouched on benches in the otherwise vast and empty cargo hold, watching over their small cargo of highly unique and valuable items.

The Hutts' men were coming in an older Consular Class cruiser. They were also led by two repurposed TIE fighters which were now harrying the Marauders' aging Corellian YT-2000 freighter, preventing it from fully powering up its hyperdrive.

"Kinn! How are the bloody shields holding up?" screamed Intan, the former stormtrooper Centopt who was the leader of the Marauders.

From the cockpit, Kinn held on to both rudder sticks as he fought the shuddering vessel as it was futilely attempted to stabilize its failing systems.

"Well, they're holding as scrap, 'cuz they're no better than scrap. I don't have the power to outrun the fighters, and I ain't got the power to bulk up the shields. Now's the time for good ideas, 'cuz I can only dodge so much of this. Can't go to light speed while they're hitting us."

::: || :::

As she was moments from having her flesh turn to charred bits of plasma, before freezing solid in the galactic void, Varo sifted through the events which brought her there.

She'd worked her way across the galaxy in cargo vessels, and was no stranger to smugglers. She could sense a trap, knew how to handle a blaster, and had a sense of sniffing out a deal when it presented itself. That was the lot of the Twi'Leks in time of the Empire, and she learned it quickly.

As a mechanic on a routine ice hauler, she was captured by pirates who intended to sell the crew as slaves. She was not fond of the cruel Neimodian ice merchant who owned that vessel, but he was only so much frozen space junk now, thanks to those pirates. She and the other sellable crew members had been loaded into the cargo hold of their captors' ship. She'd only pretended to submit to their authority until they landed. They had hoped to sell the lot of them to stormtroopers who were in need of servants and female company. The last thing to go through the pirates' heads — other than the plasma torch which she had produced from her boot with impeccable timing — was wondering how a young, female Twi'Lek got the drop on them. If Varo had learned anything from life raised on scavenging, it was to kill or be killed as the only sure way to be nobody's slave.

She joined up with the former stormtroopers who were then looking for work as mercenaries, taking Varak as her lover and her partner.

Varak, at least, was charming, fit, and a crack soldier. He was clever enough, and his ruthlessness suited her. They had formed a formidable duo, with her as the gunner while he piloted a speeder. But she also knew that Varak was limited by overconfidence.

The Marauders had sent a message with vague promises of looted Jedi artifacts from Darth Vader himself. The Hutts replied that, naturally, they were delighted to entertain dealing for such goods. An invitation was extended to the stormtroopers to present their goods to the Hutt Triumvirate on the planet Cyrkron.

Varo pleaded with them to allow her to take the lead on negotiations, as she had experience in the underworld of smugglers. Intan, as he was wont, dismissed any alien or non-trooper with a growl and a chortle. Even Varak smirked at the idea. Well, she sighed to herself at the time, we'll see how this goes, then.

The trading city of Motok was built on a level platform resting between the tops of the highest mountains on Cyrkron. The extremely narrow peaks of the range made the port virtually impregnable from surface attacks. The fierce, constant updrafts, pushing up from the mountains would buoy ships, easing their landing, and bolstering their take-off velocity. This was a natural spaceport in the mountains, just at the edge of the breathable atmosphere.

The platform city was laid out with roads between buildings and landing pads, interrupted by the occasional feature of the mountains jutting through the plasteel decks.

The Hutt Triumvirate oversaw everything under their trading corporation, including prime industries of shipping, smuggling, and every other trade which civilization tends to bring; every luxury and vice was there for a price.

Nearly a million citizens lived here on this suspended surface in the clouds in fabricated dwellings and closely packed towers. Built from the abundant quartz, the domes and towers glittered in soft, diffused, natural light.

A quarter of the population lived under the platform level in dwellings made on the mountain slopes in lean-tos, shacks, or in caves carved into the mountain walls. Their occupants would emerge to the surface city from time-to-time to take menial jobs, to beg, or to steal for their sustenance.

The surface of the planet was poisonous to most galactic life, and the dwellers on the slopes suffered from closer exposure to this. As was often the case in the galaxy in those days, the poorest and most powerless also suffered multiplying disadvantages in both their distance from gainful opportunity, and their proximity to danger and toxicity.

Within the largest mountain peak, towering above the platform city, was an ancient temple carved into the the cliffside. The solid granite was chiseled and scraped lovingly into even friezes and unknown religious symbols over the course of hundreds of generations back during the time of hand tools. Whoever these beings were, or for what holy purpose the temple served, was all lost in time. The Hutts had turned this into their company headquarters. Impregnable from the planet's surface, nothing less than a bombardment of Star Destroyers would open those doors to the uninvited.

The Marauders had sent a party of five to parlay with the Hutts. This included Intan, Cranna, Mersan, and Varak and Varo. They were met at their dock by a sadly pleasant, but dented, Imperial protocol droid, who took them up the long slope to the entrance of the corporate hall.

They were flanked on each side by four Gamorrean guards with halberds as their escort. The green-hued barbarian mercenaries with wide snouts and fearsome tusks were known for loyalty to their paymasters, delivering animalistic violence on demand. They were prized by the Hutts for these services. If Varo had wondered whether they were really in the presence of the Triumvirate, the Gamorreans were the first proof that this was really happening.

Whatever ascetic, holy beings had once passed through these caverns when it was a temple would have been flummoxed the venal decadence which flowered under the control of the Hutts.

The corporation was more like a pleasure palace than it was a place of straight-forward business. Long hallways with elaborate light paintings, expensively tuned fluorolight gleaming over polished stone floors, never-ending parties among their entourage, all served to alternatingly entice and distract visitors and schemers.

The Marauders had removed their stormtrooper helmets per the request of their hosts, also leaving their long guns back in their ship. They had only been allowed to keep their small side arms out of galactic custom. In front of them, they pushed a repulsor sled with a durasteel case large enough to lie down on. They wore motley, dented trooper armor with red pinstripes, decorated with bands of Ewok scalps.

Intan himself sported blackened eyes, a braided beard, and a nexu fur collar over his armor. Varak's handsome charm necessitated that he take the lead on bargaining with the Hutts. Intan's demeanor betrayed his inner personality, which was that he was much more adept at humorless murder than diplomacy.

Varo, as the only non-trooper in this group, wore a repurposed Imperial female pilot's baggy flight suit.

Each of the troopers was privately unnerved by how unimpressed every member of the Hutt entourage seemed to be. The partiers hardly looked up from their drinks or their dancing to notice them, aside from some condescending glances and disapproving noses.

In the context of the forests of Endor, the Marauders had looked terrifying. Amidst the finely coiffed and precisely decorated dandies, traders, and courtesans, they looked feral and desperate. In a gallery of hired killers, they were merely the most ridiculous and worst dressed, hardly distinguished from the Gamorreans in their animal skins and mail.

Varo had hissed advice before they'd ascended the hallway to the Hutt's receiving rooms.

"They will offer you strong drinks while negotiating. You must take one and only sip it. Pour it in a potted plant if one is handy. The Hutts always play these little games."

In this confusion, the Marauders ignored Varo and helped themselves to strong concoctions served on generously proffered trays from servant droids. This served to lighten their heads and loosen their tongues. Much to their disadvantage.

The three gelatinous Hutts reclined on their couches in the final room at the end of the meandering hallway. They were raised on a platform so that they were slightly higher than everyone else. Diffidently amused by the proceedings, no more than the slightest of expressions were betrayed as they pulled vapor from their hookahs. The enormous, slug-like creatures said absolutely nothing which could be heard below, but only occasionally chortled among themselves as they mostly observed.

Tall, transparent tanks of liquid were erected as decorative pillars in the room. Ethereal light came unevenly through slowly bubbling waxes which glowed like deep sea creatures, floating up and falling down in a slow cycle, forming and reforming into random blobs. Casting shadows on all the floors, this gave the dealers and partiers a sensation of living inside a pond, watching the lily pads drifting lazily on the surface above. Motok may have been suspended in dry mountain land, but it was the property of the amphibious Hutts, and their aesthetic let all who came before them know exactly that.

Two of the largest pillars with the glowing, melting wax lit the dais from either side of the Hutts. Dancers on floating repulsor platforms swayed to the music as they drifted listlessly above the throng below.

When the Marauders' time came to be received and lay their goods at the feet of the Triumvirate, they found the niceties and hospitality had ended. No longer indulging or only slightly condescending, the Hutt's direct entourage of humans and aliens switched to an aggressive stance. Their speaker was an older Weequay with a scaly, reptilian face, with severe war braidings tying up his feather-like hair. He didn't bother to introduce himself. He only began addressing the troopers as though they were a burden on his time. He paced as he spoke, snarling in accented Basic at the troopers as they unbolted the chest to reveal the stolen Jedi artifacts.

"You wandering, cowering hirelings come here to do business with the great Triumvirate of Cyrkron! You should be grateful, you little farmlings, we'd even see you! The Hutts do not care for thieves! And thieves you are! What have you stolen from the Empire that you bring us? What have you brought before us? What have you betrayed your oaths to tuck into your rat bags to try and sell?"

Varak smiled as best as he could through gritted teeth. While he could handle basic diplomacy, he was hardly more clever than the typical stormtrooper.

"We are honored that — that the Hutts will see us, Your Excellencies. We assure you that these goods were come upon righteously as spoils of war, and have been kept safe by our — uh, — v-very trained hands…"

He waved his hand over the open chest, displaying a gleaming array of 30 lightsabers. They were each different from one another; customized with interlaced layers of fine metals shining in varying hues. Kyber crystals pulsed in soft colors from their embedded chambers. They had pommels of polished duraluminum, ronto bone, chammian ivory, and other unknown, exotic materials. Ridged handles on the weapons were knurled with care, fitted for hands and palms which had long since turned to dust and joined the Force. Varak had arranged the antiques carefully to affect a great awe on those who saw them. The Weequay just snorted.

Varo had warned them, again and again, to bring only a small selection; three or four, at best. But they'd insisted on bringing more than a third of their lightsabers with them, hoping to sell them for millions of credits all at once. They didn't understand what the holocrons really were, so they had a hard time imagining they would sell for nearly as much as the exotic weapons. Those remained back on the ship as a secondary thought, as the stormtroopers were hoping to first procure a windfall with a selection of antique weaponry.

If the Hutts were at all interested, they showed no change, only chuckling and pulling on hookahs, chittering among themselves. The Weequay snarled insults at the Marauders, which seemed to amuse the Hutts, in between his belittling the claimed provenance of their goods.

"And pretty plasmoid fakes? I've seen toys sold on the strands which look as convincing as these. Tell me, are they broken old pieces you found in a swamp, or did your Imperial masters make these as torches to find their piss pots in the dark?"

Varak was now slurring in his responses. His drunken anger was making the biker scout sloppy.

"They are TRUE! They were kept in lockers by Darth Vader. In hidden lockers in a keep on the planet Voss!"

The Weequay looked back at the Hutts and smiled before turning back to the troopers.

"Hidden? A keep we never heard of? How convenient for you, then, hirelings!"

The reptilian speaker stepped off the dais with a single leap. He passed his hands over the items, picking each one up to examine it, and passing judgement with added insult each time.

"Clever. I'm sure it would be fine to sell to tourists."

"Would be nice to sell as souvenirs. Hah. May be worth something for the ivory. If it's real ivory, I mean."

"Hah! I am too hard! I am not so heartless, after all. I am sure they are lovely toys, at least."

This all had what Varo suspected was the intended effect. The Marauders were now flustered, their faces turning red with intoxicated frustration. She felt the first tinge of panic; the Hutts knew this game. They expected stormtroopers to be brainless muscle with no art of negotiation. And they had called that perfectly. Drunken, desperate, and full of their own delusional arrogance, the Marauders were completely in over their heads.

The Hutts had seen the disappearance of the old Republic, the fall of the Jedi, and the Empire extend its grasp on the galaxy. Their generously undulating tongues were salivating in anticipation at what the remnants of the stormtrooper corps would be scrounging up to sell. Especially for artifacts of the Jedi and of Vader.

There would be purchasers for this loot, and the Hutts were the best agents to unload it. They took the largest share of any traders of goods, but they secured neutral trading hubs like Motok, and they paid for muscle to back their word. They'd cheat you blind if they could, but they'd always pay the price they promised, and let you walk out alive. Most of the time, anyway.

Varo quietly looked around, carefully taking in the full range of their surroundings. The towering pillars of light and shifting wax distorted shadows in the room. The floating dancers continued to sway as the Weequay shouted insults. Varo felt her body conspicuously under the billowy pilot's uniform as she saw from the corner of her eye that nearly naked Twi'Lek females of hues from green to red to blue were among the dancers. She knew all too well the fetishes in the galaxy for her race. There'd be time enough to be nauseated by this later. She wouldn't do well allowing this to unnerve her.

Intan couldn't help but scowl through the whole presentation. Varak kept a gritting smile when he wasn't trying to get a word in with the Weequay who kept muttering insults as he gave comment over each item as he passed his hands on them. Finally, his reptilian face crinkled to his own approximation of a smile, and he nodded. He leaped back on the dais and turned to face them with his arms extended. There was a pause.

"Fair enough, troopers. We will pay. One million credits."

The Marauders looked at one another nervously. Varak was obviously surprised. They knew the most the lightsabers would probably sell for would be in fact one million credits, and this to the final buyers. He still stumbled out a reply, attempting to sound as gracious as a stormtrooper could do.

"Yes. Well. We would agree to that price! One million creds, and at 30 sabers, that should be a total of 30-million, then?"

The Weequay snorted. "No. One million. For all of them! Best price you gonna get, boy."

Varak looked shocked now. As much as it was against his interest, he could not help but show emotion. His chiseled, handsome and dark-skinned face went from shock to twisted disbelief, slowing to anger.

"What? No. NO!"

His frustration only prompted the Weequay to throw back his head and laugh, followed by the chittering of the crowd, and the bellowing echo of the Hutts' amusement. Varak was sputtering now.

"They are worth… so MUCH more than that! We insist on 800 thousand a piece!"

Good, good, thought Varo. He's sticking to the plan. Insist hard on a high price. The Hutts will bargain. They will work down. They had discussed that if they could get half-a-million a saber, that would be what they would settle for, and the absolute bottom was 450. But you must have your own outrageous price to begin with.

Rather than dealing, now, the Weequay looked away and waved his hand.

"No matter, farmlings. Go back and tend a bantha ranch, then."

Undoubtedly, the Triumvirate was much better at this than the troopers. Drunkenly, Varak panicked, and slurring his protest, destroyed their position.

"N-no, then half-a-million, then! Couldn't go lower than 450!"

He stumbled to get the words out, only realizing he had completely crumbled his own bargaining price. The Weequay paused and put a clawed finger to his chin.

"Well. Then if you would take that much, surely then we know what they must be worth. We will be generous. 100,000 for each lightsaber. You have 30, yes? That is 3 million."

A million creds would be enough to buy a new freighter. It was still more than any but the Imperial Officer salaries would earn in a lifetime. Still, the trouble they had gone to, including the risk and the death undertaken, was all for the hope of a windfall of millions more. With more credits, they would have enough for all the Marauders to be self-sustaining for a lifetime, to purchase a more robust space cruiser, and then take safer jobs for decades while they enjoyed retirement from the danger of the galaxy.

But this was not to be. Varo exhaled as she resigned herself to this fact. The troopers had put themselves into a corner, and now with the most delicate negotiations, they could hope to maybe get a million or more from the Hutts, but never the 13 to 15 they had planned on.

She looked over the Marauders. Cranna and Mersan just had their mouths agape, unsure what they were facing. Intan's face was fixed on a permanent scowl, thirsty for violence. Varak was clearly panicking.

Varo leaned in and whispered strenuously to her lover.

"Work from there. Tell them 11! We can get out with maybe 10! We have more to sell! Do it!"

Before she finished, Varak's face was twisted up in anger, turning again to the Weequay, ignoring her advice, disastrously.

"You are… YOU ARE A CHEAT! A dishonest broker! A…"

The Weequay was chuckling, holding up his scaled hands, speaking playfully and calmly, which only made Varak more irrational.

"What? Me? I'm really a nice guy! You should take your cred and play me in Sabacc, say?"

Whatever Varak may have intended to do next if he had actually stopped to think was no longer in play. Stupidity and aggression took the momentum, setting off a chain of unfortunate events. His body lurched, heading to the dais to make his point face-to-face. Whether it was to truly physically acost the Weequay, or to just preen with the intimidation he was used to employing against quarrelsome civilians, this would never be known. The nearest Gamorrean stepped in, and Varak's progress was immediately arrested by the staff of the halberd, held horizontally, being raised up and meeting his forehead.

The biker scout was immediately stunned, falling back involuntarily. He barely hesitated getting his wits about him, and immediately inhaled and lurched again, now insensate with rage, grabbing the halberd with one hand, and putting the other to the neck of the guard. The Gamorrean naturally had a neck far thicker than Varak's hand could fit around, and he accomplished nothing but grasping at the guard's collar, and leaving his own defenses down. Instantly, a Gamorrean fist crashed down on his face, knocking him flat to the ground.

The hallway echoed with laughter at the expense of the hapless trooper. Even the Gamorreans oinked with amusement. Varo's eyes were wide, and her skin was getting hot. She saw a gush of red blood over Varak's brown skin as he rose, apparently missing teeth, and seething with pain, he reached at his belt.

"NO!" Varo screamed.

Varak produced a blaster and shot the Gamorrean in the chest. It collapsed backward with a dying squeal.

Now there was a moment of quiet as all the stormtroopers looked around the room at the partiers who were either frozen or starting to shift into offensive positions, reaching for side weapons. The Hutts were scowling, their wide mouths otherwise unmoving. Only the Weequay laughed.

"Oh, you ARE stupid, aren't you?"

Varak turned and fired at the Weequay who caught the blast in his chest and immediately fell to the dais. Now the remaining Gamorreans turned and came pressing in, brandishing their blades.

Varo's heart had been pumping hard, her breath coming rapidly. In the midst of this panic, time seemed to slow. Just before a halberd blade could disembowel her, she ducked and wrapped a hand around one of the sabers on display. She rolled forward, pulling on the ignition with her thumb. Instantly, a blinding blue plasma blade burst to life, hissing and humming in the air.

She was no blade fighter. She winced and held her arms out, spinning once, her green tentacles flying in the air, screaming a war cry. The humming and burning blade was a blur, and the Gamorreans were temporarily stunned into stepping back. Varo wasted no time. She kicked the chest closed, putting a foot against its bulk, and jumped on top of it. She stepped off, planting the other foot hard on the stone-thick head of one of the Gamorreans before it could react. Using his skull as a step, she now launched herself up on to the dais. The Hutts visibly shuddered, their blubber rippling in fright. But she wasn't interested in them. Instead, she planted her foot again and leaped off the dais towards one of the pillars of glowing wax.

The transparent plasteel didn't slow down the trajectory of the lightsaber as it sunk into the side of the lamp tank. With a hissing pop, the wall yielded to her momentum, slightly bubbling and scorching around the blade. She held on desperately with two hands, leaving a glowing wound in the pillar as she descended to the ground. As she intended, the integrity of the structure no longer could hold the pressure of the liquid against it, and a gush of warm water and melted, glowing wax spilled out over the floor to the ground level below the dais.

The Gamorreans squealed and fell hard, struggling to get their footing in the viscous bath. The liquid spent several seconds fully glugging entirely out of the pillar.

Varo was drenched and covered with water and wax. She opened her eyes and looked up, seeing the dancers above had now stopped moving, floating on their platforms, with their hands over their mouths in shock.

The next few moments were a blur. She could recall Intan kicking the switch to activate the repulsors for the sled, and grasping on it with slimy limbs, shoving it violently in front of him while imploring the others to run. The Marauders, clanging in their slimed stormtrooper armor, slipped until they found their footing and headed for the exit with Varo following them. She was occasionally turning around and snarling and spinning the glowing blade to intimidate any who would dare follow, pausing only to try and wipe the waxy fluid away from her eyes with her other hand.

The entourage all throughout the corporate hall who hadn't been near enough to get wet were still shocked by the sudden violence of the exploding pillar. No one attempted to interfere with the Marauders at first. Varo could hear the deep tones of the Hutts, shouting angry oaths at their hired killers, ordering them to give chase.

Kinn was pulling on a hookah stim which was serving up a particularly head-lightening intoxicant when he heard a commotion heading towards the freighter's docking bay. He saw, coming around the corner, the five Marauders, seemingly covered with a slippery liquid, their faces taught with terror. They were pursued by a crowd of similarly slimed and angrily oinking Gamorreans, running as fast as their stubby legs could take them.

Varo was pumping her limbs, tentacles bouncing with the effort, constantly slipping, gasping for breath as she kept swinging the humming blade behind her. She could see Kinn up ahead, his mouth agape, blinking, as he saw them coming. She could seem him mouth "No… shocking… way!"

He finally woke up and ran up the ramp of the rusty freighter, slapped on the thruster ignition as he alerted the others, and leapt into the pilot's chair. Intan grunted as he leaned in and pushed the sled up the ramp, followed in quick succession by the rest of the team. The ship immediately began to groan with the sound of metal under strain as the repulsors came alive, gradually winding up and pushing against the gravity of the planet.

The ship stuttered and wobbled, badly in need of the upgrades and replacements a successful deal would have bought them. Nevertheless, the wedge-shaped vessel eventually turned sideways, catching the updraft, finally righting itself as Kinn pulled back on the throttle, flinging their woebegone ride into space, away from the Hutts.

::: || :::

The freighter shook with another hit. Fluorolight stuttered and faded, leaving only dim emergency lighting, as the thrust and shaking finally wound down. Gravity was gone. Kinn's voice came from the cockpit, shouting down to the team rather than over the intercom.

"That's it, Mates. Hit us with an ion blast. Would seem they've finished us. We're dead in the water."

Intan looked out of a porthole in the hull, watching the pursuers behind them appear to spin when in fact it was their doomed ship itself was spiraling. They were now just drifting as listless space junk.

"They could finish us. But they're not doing it. I think they're still closing. They mean to take the artifacts from us."

Sober now, blood drying on his face, Varak spoke over a fattened lip.

"It would have worked. It didn't have to end like this. We could have done it. If I hadn't drank so much and lost my temper."

Varo leaned next to Intan, watching the two TIEs now bearing down on them. She sighed and spoke her desperate thoughts aloud.

"They may yet still deal with us. We'd have to take a hit in costs. Pay for the damage. They'd probably try and get a million off the top to compensate them for the Gamorrean. Even though I'm sure the others will forget that one of them is even missing, and hardly notice when the Hutts roast Gamorrean meat for their dinner."

"What about that Weequay I shot?" Asked Varak, wistfully.

"What, are you that stupid?" Varo hissed, now losing her temper. "Weequay skin is blaster proof. He's laughing it off right now. That doesn't mean that they won't try and claim that we owe them for that, as well."

"Besides," she sighed. "They'll probably just offer us some mercy, offer us some payment for the artifacts, just enough to get us to cooperate, and then just kill us once we've been boarded. They probably tried to sway everything to turn out this way all along."

Intan snorted. "Well. It's what I would have done."

Varo smirked. "Yeah. Me too."

The Marauders all laughed with grim irony, their eyes focusing nowhere in particular on the dark shadows of the their dead ship. They went over their options between their instincts to beg for mercy, and their honorable option of self-destruction and denying the artifacts to anyone.

"That's odd…" Kinn's voice, growing hoarse with shouting, had warbled down to them from the cockpit.

"What is it now?" snapped Intan.

"Auxiliary sensors report a ship entering the system. It's a Mandalore Interceptor."

Intan snorted. "Probably just going to deal with the Hutts. What of it?"

"It's that bounty hunter from Voss. Jeet Syllba. His ship. And he's heading right for us."


	2. Chapter 02 :: The Kenobi

Chapter 02 :: The Kenobi

Desesk wondered if he'd ever get used to the disembodied female voice that chimed in to his head when he least expected it.

_We have entered the Ojoster sector, and we will emerge from the light tunnel on the inside of the Taris asteroid field._

Zara, the AI who lived on a chip in his artificial left eye, displayed a map directly to his corneal nerve. Desek put down the ancient, vegetable-starch, bound scroll he was reading about the ancient worshippers of the Force and the uprising of the Dark Jedi. This kind of knowledge was banned during the time of Emperor Palpatine, and he'd been catching up on banned history from some of the Jedi's recovered relics.

Focusing now on the mission at hand, he could see the system map displaying their flightpath to their destination of the fifth planet from the star. The planet, known as "Taris," gave the system its name.

He'd started with configuring Zara as male, but found no matter how often he changed the pitch of the disembodied voice, it grew to irritate him. He also turned off the voice protocol altogether, leaving it only to send him written text notifications. But then he found he'd go several minutes without even noticing the blinking Arabash script in the corner of his eye, leading him to miss important information. He settled on Zara as female, now, and just chipper enough to be friendly without sounding too artificial. He just liked her better this way.

"Is Captain Skywalker awake, Zara?"

_He is awake and he is in the galley. Shall I ping him that you request his attention?_

"Yes, please do. We'll need to meet in person and discuss this among us blood bags."

A notification came up right away that Skywalker had responded and now asked all members of the ship to come into the galley. Desek placed his slightly blue Chiss hand on R2, the astromech droid at the helm of the Imperial Lambda shuttle.

"The bridge is yours, droid."

The droid beeped in acknowledgement. He'd come along to Voss with the Jedi to take possession of Vader's Keep. Desek was part of the garrison assigned to the planet, and also among those who chose to stay and serve the son of the Dark Lord. They were traveling now in Vader's former personal T-4 shuttle, re-named _The Kenobi_.

T4s like this were functionalist military transport tools, capable of carrying two dozen troops and a few tons of cargo in comfort. Or double that much in discomfort. They were state-of-the-art for the Empire, however, adept at hyperspace and atmospheric landing, capable of maneuvering deftly when docking or flying within the embrace of planetational gravity. Modified as this one was for Vader, it was slightly more comfortable than standard, and contained the most advanced flight capabilities. The Dark Lord seemed not to care for luxuries, but it was doubly walled with insulation and shields, and there were extra data screens. Considering it would be expected to host diplomatic personnel, the bunks and couches for the crew were practically luxurious when compared to plastoid cots in trooper barracks.

The son of Vader was interested in the legacy his father had hidden in the keep on Voss, which ended up mostly being artifacts of the old Jedi order. Luke's group had managed to hold on to most of those from Voss, even though they had suffered serious losses at the hands of a gang of mercenary stormtroopers who had come to loot the keep at the same time. They now ported a select portion of these remaining relics to the Taris System.

Desek placed a hand on the hailing panel at the door of the tiny galley. It chimed, and the door hissed open. Young Skywalker was there, sitting at the table, pouring tea with two hands. He wore a plain, light grey military jacket and trousers with flight boots with no insignia. His sandy blonde hair had grown longer down his neck in the months since he had arrived on Voss. Like the Jedi of old, he now wore a finely trimmed beard. Desek was suddenly aware that he, himself, still wore the dark grey Imperial fatigues with the red piping and the Empire's sigil on his shoulder. Not that the former rebel ever said anything.

"Permission to join, Captain?"

"Of course, Corporal. And let me say, I don't think we need to stand on too much formality. There are only the four of us. Five if you count R2."

Desek rested on the bantha leather seats, pausing to appreciate their comfort. He was unused to conversing plainly with an officer, but forced a smile. He respected the Jedi. He had very little understanding of the course of events which had brought him to their garrison to begin with. Jafan, the troopers' former Centopt, had bonded with Skywalker and had studied some of the ways of the Jedi. His sacrifice was unbearably painful for all of them now.

"Consider the droid one of the crew then, uh, Captain?"

"That droid has got me out of more scrapes than I can count. As far as I can see, his inner spark has as much or more of the Force than a lot of fully living beings I've met."

He looked up smiled warmly.

"And please, you can call me 'Luke,' Desek. I can offer tea. There's also Corellian Ale."

"Thank you, Cap– uh, Luke. I'll take take a can of that ale. We never got anything but a very peculiar kind of brew the Voss made from those reeds they chew."

Luke slid a can to him. "I had some of those reeds. It's what the mystics chewed. They also were fond of locusts. How was the brew?"

Desek eagerly popped the can open. He longed for any intoxication that would ease the conversation.

"It tasted like dirt and bark. It was potent, though."

Desek took a swig. "Ah, that takes me back. Days on the fleet. Before the garrison."

Desek had considered the Jedi carefully since he'd joined their travels. He knew his own days as a stormtrooper were over. The betrayal by the Empire against the garrison certainly saw to that as far as he was concerned. The idea of a Jedi order returning to the galaxy, which Luke had seemingly intended, seemed like a real opportunity to break away from the Empire's tentacles. But Desek was constantly nagged by a thought in his own head; what of his own ultimate fate in all this? He considered that if this life wasn't to end as suddenly as he expected it to do when he was dying there in the Voss village, his long-term thoughts drifted towards pursuing something. A farm, younglings, a loving wife, a cache of riches? Whether or not it would pay to be the travelling companion of a Jedi Knight had yet to be determined.

"How's the eye? And the knees?" Asked Luke.

"Still a little sore. But I can feel already feel these plasteel ones are better than any my own body could make. The eye is unnerving. It's as though I never lost the old one, but the cybernetic abilities keep reminding me. I don't know if I'll ever fully get used to it."

Luke involuntarily rubbed his hands together as he nodded, favoring his right hand which was covered with a glove.

The door hailer chimed again. Heff and Drrsala entered the wardroom. Heff was Desek's fellow stormtrooper. While Desek was thin and blue skinned, and carefully cerebral, Heff was his opposite in every way. He was thickly built, with tan skin and a terrifying scar on his face. Nevertheless, while Desek's deliberative nature was his greatest asset to the elite force, Heff's utterly jovial and reliable nature made him the best grunt of the garrison. The running joke was that nobody could understand what system exactly he was from. He spoke Basic well enough, but he seemed to have trouble with syllables.

"May we come in, Top?"

"Please do. Have a seat. Ale or tea?" Luke replied.

Heff's frightening visage widened in a pleasant smile as he took an ale as a matter of course.

Drrsala was the son of two Trandoshan bounty hunters who had lost their lives attempting to collect on the head of the Jedi. In being spared his life, Drrsala's code was to serve the Jedi as his oathman. Luke let him know that he was free to go if he wished, as he was barely a hatchling. But to Drrsala's understanding, serving a Jedi was a great honor. The reptilian was now nearly as tall as Heff, growing fast. He wore a plain white cloak over his reddish scales. His teeth always seemed to form a smile, which distracted from his true nature as a preternatural hunter. His Basic was coming along, but he mostly communicated with low growls and the occasional chirping. Luke passed him a small melon, which he took gratefully. These small fruits were relished by Drrsala, and seemed to be the main source of any liquid he ingested, short of when he'd drink the blood of prey. Luke had stocked several as nourishment for the Trandoshan when they visited the fleet.

On this trip thus far, the Jedi had thus far mostly kept his own counsel, meditating on the Force in his quarters, often leaving Desek to somewhat converse with Heff or the AI, if anyone at all. After spending so long as part of a unit and band of brothers, on _The Kenobi,_ a bit of loneliness was a novelty.

"I thank you all for being here," Luke began. "I wanted to at least you all know why we've come to Taris, and to let you know where go from here.

"I don't know what the fate of the Empire will be. The Rebels are negotiating now with the remnant of Imperial forces. Already, the systems are reverting to local governments, and I suppose the plan is to recreate the structure of the Republic. Anyway, I didn't pick up the mantle of the Jedi to get into politics."

Desek raised an eyebrow in anticipation for what came next. Luke continued.

"Since the Emperor threw all his resources into the military, and he seems to have sacrificed the bulk of his fleet and command, that leaves all of us who were on opposite sides with no more conflict between us. But we've been through all that. We've already been in battle side by side."

Luke sighed and narrowed his eyebrows. He was speaking now of things he had contemplated deeply.

"The old stories tell us of the Jedi Nomad. Back when they were peacekeepers. When matters of honor were settled by civilized warriors, not by mechanized slaughter. There is maybe a need for that kind of thing again. I see that as our place.

"For now, we have this ship. It's not perfect for hauling freight, but we can haul some. We can offer armed escort for other traders as well, certainly. We'll be able to pay our own way with small profits. I can offer you this much. It's not the profit you may get if you want to leave and join a smuggler's crew, or be mercenaries somewhere.

"My greatest priority, however, is to compile the legacy of the Jedi order. When I can, maybe establish a place to archive, to train, to pass this on. Taris is a big place most of which is or was covered by a sprawling city. There once was a cache of Jedi archives kept there. They were transferred to a museum at some point, and then all references to them are missing from the Imperial records. I mean to look for artifacts of the old Jedi which I know are there. I've seen this in the Force.

"I mean to keep the way of the Jedi as my way. So long as the rest of you wish to walk with me, I'll share all profits, and all knowledge with you."

There it was. Luke was set on treasure hunting as their immediate goal. He was obviously open to hauling freight and taking on contracts. Not highly lucrative, but all things considered, it was more worth their time than suffering disintegration going for a big score. Desek and Heff looked at one another.

"A question, though…?" Desek interjected.

"Yes?" Luke replied.

"But aren't the Jedi… a born elite? I fear we'd be out of place as your companions. It's not something we have. It seems that the… magic… is something in the blood."

Luke nodded. "Well. Some thought so. Towards the end of the Jedi era, some of them were believers in the Midichlorian Theory. I don't know what to think about that, other than it means nothing me. I also don't think we'll all have to pretend we're living five thousand years in the past. The Force is there, within us, outside of us. It's with you if you want it. It's as simple as the code. The path is there to walk if you will it."

Desek was puzzled when Luke would speak this way. This is what gave him pause about tying his fate to digging through the archeology of this old order when he may be better off collecting bounties or just mixing drinks for moisture farmers somewhere.

"Well, I can't lift this table with my mind. But I've seen that you can do that. How does that work? Is that not what the Jedi were?"

Luke turned back and forth in his chair, placing his hands together, the gloved and the ungloved, as he gathered his thoughts. He took a breath as he began.

"I have some abilities to do things which I wouldn't have believed possible a few years ago. But to a Jedi, the Force is an ally, not a tool. But there is much more to the way of the Jedi and the power of the Force than just external tricks. I will explain this to you all as best that I can.

"Think of how strong Heff is, for example. I know he could beat either of us with wrestling."

Heff beamed, proudly.

"But could he beat Drrsala? Drrsala's muscles are too dense. It's the kind of species he is. His strength was formed by life on his world over timeless generations that made him what he is. The product of all those elements whittling him to be what he is today."

Drrsala made a pleased, hissing sound.

"But consider then, could Drrsala even bend Artoo's leg in a direction the droid didn't want it to go? Even strength with the densest muscle won't win against metal and hydraulic servos.

"What is the difference in all of us when considering the scale of a planet? Of what pulls a planet around a sun, or what pulls one sun against another?

"That is the Force. Some Jedi, some times, are able to tap into that, to let it flow through them. It's dangerous to wield so much power untrained, however. The key to the Jedi — when the Jedi were at their most true form — it was not about about brute power, as much as using it wisely. You already have the spark of the Force within you. You have shown yourselves worthy of wielding whatever power you can master. Mastering the Force isn't just power. That alone is the Dark Side. It is also mastering wisdom of the Force.

"I'm not asking you to join the old religion. Or to try and feel something you do not. But you can serve the side of the Jedi if you honor the Force in all things. If we fight, we fight for the just, not out of anger. Not for power.

"There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no death, there is the Force. This is the way of the Jedi. The only ways that matter, anyway.

"You are a small band, but serve with me, and you're no longer the Garrison of Voss. You were _Vader's Own._ You can be _The Jedi's Own._"

Desek betrayed no outward emotion. _A fanatic_, he thought. _But he's not a fool. _He looked over, and Heff already raised a toast with his can.

"Jed. Di."

"Witthth Jeedi!" hissed Drrsala.

Desek cleared his throat and deliberately raised his can.

"I'm with you, Luke."

"Thank you. And like I said, this is a group of equals. When you're ready to part with me, I won't demand you stay. The oath I ask is to the path and to the way, not this man."

Desek nodded. He kept his doubts to himself for now. But the Jedi was honorable, and in that he was satisfied.

"We'll be near Taris by now, Luke. If you'd like, we can begin our approach to the city, and verify permission to land."

"Thank you, Desek. Give me some time in my quarters. I'll need to contemplate Taris before we land. But I'd like to come out and pilot _The Kenobi_ for when we come in."

"I'll be looking forward to it, Cap — Luke."

Luke stood and bowed slightly. The others instinctively stood up and bowed as well. Luke took his leave through the sliding doors to what were once Vader's quarters on the ship.

Desek switched Zara back on.

_Any orders?_

"Tell the ship to actively scan the comms about any news of the security situation in this system. We're going to need to find out who is still in charge, and ask them for permission to land when we're in range."

_As you wish._

Heff shook his head.

"Weird. Weird now when you talk but I hear no one you talk to."

Desek laughed. He'd explained the AI a couple of times, but Heff just couldn't wrap his head around his friend talking to an invisible computer.

::: | | :::

The door had barely hissed shut when the elderly female voice mocked him from the corner of the room.

"Did you lie to them, Jedi? Have you gone that far to follow the path of the old fools who set themselves to fall so blindly?"

Luke sighed.

"I did not lie. But there is more to tell them of course. I told them about the truth of the Jedi's greatest virtues. The good truth. What was right about the Jedi of old. I did not tell them yet about the wound in the Force. And what that could mean. I'm not sure they would believe me. I'm not sure I even believe you."

She laughed.

"You are wise to not be gullible, Jedi. Yet you may still be proven a fool. I speak to you already as one who saw through the pretense of the code. As Darth Traya, I ruled the Sith. As Kreia, I lived as a Jedi Master, and as a compiler of archives, like you wish to be. I found peace as a Jedi, but it was the peace of a tomb, cutting myself off from the vacillations of living. I found power in the Sith, and I indulged it, and it withered me like a plucked flower. And though I am long dead by the time you will have heard this, I know through the Force what it has done with you and your father, to leave you the lone keeper of the Jedi."

Luke lifted his head. The holocron on the end table was glowing with the image of an aged, blind, human woman with long, braided white hair. Her eyes were hidden under a cowl over her head. She continued.

"I see your clothing. Grey. Grey, you are, Jedi. It was passion that you felt when you defeated Vader. You rejected it — the Dark Side. It was wise of you. The Force would consume you to its own ends if you hadn't."

Luke replied. "Then you know, Kreia. The Sith are no more. The Jedi are legends. If I am the Grey — as you say. I will still walk the path of the Jedi. But the old order that was blind to the Sith, so blind to passion, they let themselves be corrupted. I opened your Holocron because it was different. It called to me not with the harmony I feel with the Jedi. Nor the passion of the Sith. It was… something else. Something I knew was in me."

"You saw it again, didn't you? The fire?"

"Yes. It was as it was the last time I spoke to my old masters. In a vision in the Force. When I confronted the Sith Spectre, Bane. They said the Force was like a fire. It will warm, but it will also burn. Draw it close, and it will consume you, as it did to Anakin Skywalker."

Kreia nodded, but kept her lips pursed. She continued after a moment.

"Wise again, Jedi. Keep the fire in mind. What you, living, may know of the Force is not unlike a fire. I pose this conundrum to you: is a fire alive? It consumes. It grows. It reproduces itself. It will warm you. It will destroy your enemies. But set a field afire, and it _will_ consume you. You _cannot_ stop it once you unleash it. The Jedi were fools to look at the Force as though looking through a pinhole in at a great sun. They were fools to think it was something they count in the blood. They thought that the passion alone was the delivery of the consummation. They used their own capricious senses to measure that which is beyond measuring."

Luke took a careful breath. Kreia was an exhilarating source of information. She threatened the certainty of Yoda, and the serenity he hoped to find by reviving the Jedi. But it was a cleansing sensation. He knew the path was not so simple as the rituals and constraints the Jedi had built for themselves. It hadn't saved them from Vader.

"Master Kreia, I do see the fire again in my dreams now. When I meditate. The shapes come to me. It's a fire. And it forms a face. A woman's face. With hair like fire."

"Yes. Heed that face. We will come back to her when the time is right. Walk the path if you must, Jedi. But you can see the Force will serve its own ends whether or not it serves you. Your journey is not yet complete."


	3. Chapter 03 :: Nen-Taris

Chapter 03 :: Nen Taris

Taima Pahlee turned the throttle on her speeder bike, rocketing between the slow, drifting repulsorlift carriages in the morning traffic. She could have purchased a luxury sedan speeder for less than this bike cost her; it was a customized Arakyd special with all the racing options. So much deliberation and intense precision was required for her everyday life, the unleashed thrill of taking corners and curves on the bike was her form of meditation.

Her body angled forward on the seat. Her arms bent to grasp the handlebars, shoulders leaning down against the wind, legs tucked snugly against the curved haunches of the machine's thorax. The chassis was a partially exposed tubular frame; gleaming black, it reflected flashes of the filtered sunlight peeking through the steaming morning clouds. Extending two meters forward, the frame ended in a pair of winged plates which turned and directed the bike in whatever direction the rider willed them. The bone-white plasteel fascia around the saddle and rear boot were composed of overlapping plates like the shell plates of an insectoid. This was an intentional design feature. The individual panels would flex and flare to catch the wind as she dug into turns.

She wore white, fiberweave trousers and white biker boots with a black synth-skin jacket with the red Imperial sigil proudly displayed on each shoulder. Utilitarian, but fashionably styled, her outfit matched the two-tone color of her vehicle. A black-and-white helmet with a full, flat shield curved over her face. She carried a fiberweave bag over her right shoulder styled in the same silvery color as her trousers, with hand-carved sanwiwood clasps and buckles, showing her sense of refined elegance. Taima eschewed any leather, and never ingested meat, as she felt spent her days already overwhelmed with blood and worried flesh.

She preferred it like this, tearing through the streets with speed and style, with no one knowing anything of what was underneath her helmet. She chose to live slightly further from her employment than she otherwise might have done, so as to give her this commute.

Within minutes, she was in central Nen Taris, the hub of the planetary cityscape, and the density of the traffic increased. Vehicles and pedestrians were now crowded together with less room to maneuver. The buildings themselves loomed closer to one another, hanging over the roads.

This was her city and her homeworld. Although it was far from where she was born, she had watched the rebirth of Taris over the last decade. Once a magnificent city planet in ancient times, it suffered complete devastation in the ancient wars between the Sith and the Jedi. Since the dawn of the Empire, Taris had slowly recovered its true glory.

On a planet which was mostly ocean, the land itself was almost always narrow coastline, covered in ruins of what had been a world-spanning network of structures to form an ecumenopolis. Settlers up and down the coasts and islets had build new, modern structures on top of the foundations of old ruins. The Empire began to take an official interest in the age of Palpatine's military buildup, and more and more terraformer droidships were sent there. They pulled up massive piles of rubble, stitching them into networks reconnecting old roads and canals, grinding rock and random jungle into smooth public plazas. They had done wonders in the Emperor's time.

Yes, Taima rationalized, they used hundreds of thousands of slaves as well, hauling the material, shaping it into the structures for the rebirth of the planet. But they built something amazing.

The heat from the planet's core, the endless cycle of evaporation, solar heating, and gravitational forces all conspired to make the raw weather on the ruined planet a nightmare. Those slaves and droids had mainly toiled to build carbon-tendril pipelines extending from the planet's surface to just above the atmosphere, tethered by satellites at the far end, they provided a structure of space elevators to ease interplanetary travel. The tendrils connected to one another just inside the atmosphere, providing an hexagonal-shaped mesh throughout the troposphere, the purpose of which was to capture all the kinetic energy of the forming storms. The celestial forces which would have fed the raging weather were absorbed by this grid and re-channeled into plasma for the use of the denizens on the surface.

By the Empire's grace, Taris was for a time a veritable paradise with an orderly, even, and misty cloud cover with finely regular precipitation, with all the force of the natural storms now channeled into peaceful use. The rock and iron structures which threaded all the land were interspersed with millions of square kilometers of forest preserve. Crystalline skyscraper farms along the coasts, run by homesteading entrepreneurs provided food, fibers, fresh water, and oxygen for the planet's interspersed, but continuously spanning, city-scape. Floating plantations in the oceans supplemented the food supply, and provided more aquatic preserves to encourage the flowering of the planet's diverse ecosystem. All things orderly, planned, and in balance, just as the Empire had perfected.

Taima followed traffic and slowly drew past the wide, public boulevards in the center of Nen Taris with the constant crowds now gathering daily to rally and riot. Drinking, beating drums, screaming, and burning Imperial flags, they took turns denouncing the reign of Palpatine, and otherwise fouling this grand capitol.

"Fools," she muttered in her helmet as she flew by. "The Empire gave you everything."

But the Empire had fled. The Imperial Garrison, thinly staffed as it was by the end of the Rebellion, had been officially evacuated. The Star Destroyers which normally were in orbit around Taris were simply seen to be missing one morning. The military and civilian administrators were gone. A few lone holdouts of guards, engineers, and civil servants were now all that was left.

In their place, the Empire had simply handed over Taris to Thane Nel'lek, a department administrator in their local office. She was a Ranat, a sentient rodentine species, and her furry face smiled down, awkwardly, from great floating billboards above the central city which had announced the new Security Council. There were rumors on the whispernet that she had made tea for the Imperial governor, and she was simply the closest servant to hand over the keys and codes to the Imperial headquarters when the magistrates made their hasty retreat.

The leftover security forces had awkwardly been put on the planetary payroll, and most Imperial bureaucratic offices still functioned. But whispernet rumors were that nothing was getting done, and the bureaucrats were secretly shredding datapads, and hurriedly filling shuttles with whatever of value they could steal.

What had been an orderly society was quickly disintegrating. The reputation of Taris as a reborn civilization was earned by burying the memories of a nearly-abandoned wasteland full of lawlessness and savage gangs. Now, Imperial authority had withdrawn, and the old bad days were haunting them once again.

She pulled up in front of a massive modern building of durasteel and glass which took up an entire city block. She dismounted, hiking her stylish bag higher over her shoulder as she adjusted to walking on foot in her heeled white boots. A half-size, red-and-silver astromech droid chirped from its socket-seat behind the rider's seat, just over the rear boot of the speeder.

"I'll see you inside, TinKo." She addressed to the droid, which had the technical designation of 10-K0. TinKo chirped, taking over control of the bike, as she steered it off to be securely parked for the day.

Taima entered the facility through the massive atrium composed of transparisteel. Monks of the Servants of Order, an old religious society which was no longer officially repressed, were now preaching and handing out cards to pedestrians. She avoided them as she did every day. She had no particular wish to listen to these blinkered mystics proclaim the worship of their mysterious "Force" and its supposed order. However, the promise of someone, somehow, trying to bring some kind of order in the midst of the calamity of the Empire's fall was not a bad thing, so she simply kept her distance from this cult.

Entering via the staff entrance, she ducked into the locker room. She stepped into a pocket door which whooshed open for her, leading to her private dressing room and office. Her personal wardrobe opened for her, chiming a hello, as four helpful droid arms extended from the ceiling came alive, holding up the day's disposable sanitary wraps. She sighed and removed her helmet, and then her boots, stepping out of the rest of her clothes in nearly one swift motion. She carefully placed her items in a folded pile in a shelf.

She looked at herself in the full length mirror inside the wardrobe now, wearing only her mesh undergarments. She saw herself as she was, bare and nearly naked. Her skin was blindingly pale white, showing just the slightest discoloration where veins pulsed underneath the skin. Her body still had thin limbs like when she was a girl, when the others were so vicious about her colorless flesh and gawky, skinny body, and especially her alien Rattataki heritage.

Her mother was fully human, but her father was a Rattataki musician, although mostly he was a bit more of a professional smuggler and romantic as far as she knew. She had the typical pale features of her father's people, including slight dark striping offsetting the alabaster hue of her face. From her mother, she had a full head of hair as humans had. Her black tresses were now falling about her face, falling past her shoulders. It had been several months she last had it shorn. She normally had kept it as short as possible, or simply tied back.

She felt stylish and feminine in her outward fashions, but she preferred not to have others looking at her face or skin or hair for a few years now. She preferred the full body biker suits and helmets when not at work or in the confines of her own spaces.

Perhaps, with her longer hair now, she could get it styled. The thought gave her an involuntary sense of revulsion, though. No, she wasn't ready for that. Her life was complicated enough. It was better enough that she didn't have to consider others looking at her.

She leaned in to the mirror to examine her face closely, touching the flesh with her fingertips. She was old enough now to see slight lines on the sides of her mouth, and some slack on her eyes. Her green eyes were the feature about herself which she did like, and she preferred to present no more of herself than these as visible to the outside world.

She stepped back and held out her arms. The dressing droid anchored to the ceiling leaned forward and its four snaking limbs quickly wrapped a blue fiber gown around her which would be disposed of at the end of her shift. Similarly, she took a bonnet for her head, tucking up all her hair, and covering her face with a fibrous wrap. After stepping into plastoid boots and gloves, her eyes and forehead were the only part of her body which were still visible. She pulled a datapad from her bag, closing the doors to the wardrobe, and entered through the locker room seal into the operating ward.

As Chief Healer and Surgeon of the Taris Imperial Hospital, Taima Pahlee left behind her quiet, inner personal space, and her few prideful possessions, and instantly became focused on the damaged bodies which had come into her care today.

Her assistant, Ereen, small and slightly round human female, was already waiting, similarly adorned in fibrous surgical wraps, bowed and greeted good morning to Healer Taimo. TinK0 appeared as well, rolling up behind her and beeping as she connected wirelessly to the data pad. Taimo didn't break stride as she looked at the pad, nodding, as the droid and the human strolled just behind the chief as she ascended the walkway, looking down on the activity of the operating rooms below her. Busy with droids and their technicians, groups of nursing staff attending the patients being rolled in to their respective rooms.

There would be at least 300 surgical procedures on any day. And that would be up to 500, depending on the needs. This was a small fraction of the patients who were admitted to the hospital. There was a vibrant business of outpatient care: cuts were cauterized, broken bones were knitted, burns were soaked in bacta tanks, muscles were stitched, infections were bled with trintan leeches, and minor tumors were injected with mollusk proteins. Thousands lined up and received vaccinations, boosters, and digestive treatments. Thousands more were turned away for showing up drunk, looking for a place to sleep, or addicted, and pleading for painkillers. More than a dozen babies would be born and incubated. Terminal patients were given palliative painkillers and properly euthanized according to Imperial law.

Bacta was brewed in tanks on the lower floors, and was always in short supply. An entire aquarium of oceanic arthropods were bred for the special properties of their blood. Farms of insects, molds, and fungi took up several floors, as the distinctive flora and fauna were harvested to be churned into drugs, digestives, and poultices for the numerous species of galactic citizens treated there.

The pride of the hospital was the organ factory. Distinct cellular lattices provided hosts for specific stitched groupings of cells, either from universal donors, or tailored for the patient. Hearts, kidneys, lungs, arteries, stomachs, skin, scales, and bone patches were all constantly grown in vats.

Thousands of techs were employed to watch over these processes, and hundreds more were kept to maintain the 20,000 distinct droids of the facility up and working. These droids conducted micro-surgery, cleaned every surface and instrument, performed building maintenance, moved patients, and tended the bacta farms.

Healer Taima walked on a narrow walkway, looking down on the surgical rooms from a catwalk above them. She saw the patients pulling in, receiving anesthesia, attended to by medical droids. They were connecting new organs, removing cysts, attaching implants and prosthetic limbs, cleaning wounds, and stitching together torn sinews. As the surgeon, she could give commands to any of the droids as they worked, as she thumbed through their progress on the datapad.

"Seems routine so far, Ereen? Any outliers?"

"Well, we have a member of the Gran race who needs a new heart. Drank something that poisoned him, it seems, while drinking in a cantina."

"Never treated a Gran. Do we have a heart for the patient?"

"Well, actually, Healer, they have two, one on each side of the thoracic cavity."

"I assume we'll have to clone one. Or two, anyway. That will be another 12 hours, won't it?"

"Yes, Healer. Alright, I will postpone that for tomorrow. Keep him stable in a bacta tank?"

Taima hummed her assent and continued without breaking stride but still looking back. "How about the rest? Are we still seeing all these extra trauma patients?"

Ereen took a breath and continued. "I'm afraid so. The gangs have stepped up their activity. We're seeing more dead on arrival, too."

Taima hummed an affirmation as she paused and went over more statistics on the data pad, scrolling down the long lists."

"Are the techs still not showing up for work?"

"Yes. The guild is negotiating with the Directors. They're complaining that being paid in Imperial Credits is increasingly worthless."

Taima paused for a moment as she considered this.

"Well, we can't have a pause in service. We need the techs, or we'll be out of bacta and blood serums in days. Contact the guild, and on my authority, in addition to their salaries, we'll allow the techs to take bacta, serum, and cauterizing gel as part of their compensation."

Ereen looked shocked. "But… Ma'am… that won't be allowed. The rules state…"

"I'm altering the rules!" Taima snapped. "We know that if the creds are worthless, then techs need something of value. If they can take some of the medical supplies they brew, then they have something which they can sell to the gangs. The gangs are in need of the supplies with all the street fighting that they're doing, and they'll be doing everything they can to steal bacta, anyway. Without the techs here, then our supplies will be even more vulnerable to being stolen, and then unable to be replaced. The Directors won't act in time, so I will! I'll sign it with my authority."

Taima turned back to her datapad, sighing as she flipped through the charts on the screen.

"I know what happens when this gets out of hand. History will teach us. Civilization falls apart without the institutions and without properly trained Imperial Order. Now we're being run by mediocre rodents, and everyone who is left just hide behind committees. They'll let Taris fall into chaos while they dither. Well, I won't. I'm still an officer of the Empire."

Taima sighed as she watched an operation underway below her. An elderly man, unconscious, was covered mostly in the sterile fibrous gowns and bacta gel. Two droid surgeons were gently cutting into his abdomen, pulling apart skin and fat, cutting precisely into his liver.

Living things so vibrant and yet so frail as seen from up here above the operating rooms. He was helpless; his body was at the mercy of the beings around him. She swore to herself that she wouldn't let these people down. Maybe those with insufficient faith in the Empire lost their nerve simply because of the life of one mere emperor. That didn't matter to her. The Empire was the sum of what they all built. It was what they all belonged to. Of what she had served for so long to bring order and peace and safety to the Tarisians. She'd dedicated her life to serving the Empire and its subjects, and she wasn't about to give up now.


	4. Chapter 04 :: Talinn

Chapter 04 :: Talinn

What remained of the city was a scattering of broken shards of concrete, lurching at angles like the fractured bones of fallen giants. Curled metal tracks were like their fossilized spines, dangling over all the churned ruins, frozen in that moment of death. Overgrown with centuries of vines, the city's broken structures were periodically carpeted by tightly woven fibers of leaf and stalk like layers of new flesh covering old bone.

The legs of a great walker droid towered above all. Formerly smooth ceramic surfaces were pocked with blaster holes. Metal seams, once riveted and welded, were now bleeds of rust with cavernous wounds in them. Access panels in which plasma was once fired to internal gears, were opened and exposed. Vegetation had twisted around these leg-towers, latching on to every curve and indentation, filling every wound in the skin. The drooping stalks of the vine trees wobbled in the gentle winds, offering a living pastiche grafted on the dead durasteel; a garden now pushing up into the night sky. The leg-towers of ceramic and rust bore witness that once something living had made them for the purpose of delivering death. The lifeless husks had been colonized and strangled by living tenants in turn.

In between the gaping concrete islands, and under the massive leg-towers, new energy pylons and stilled hulks of dirt-haulers and loader droids were motionless, left where they were when the Empire fell. The guards and their officers had fled. The prisoners who had worked the rigs had stopped their terraforming duties and left as well. In the silence, new residents had come to visit this place.

"Have you felt it, Brothers and Sisters?" spoke the Dark Sider.

A tattered red cloak, once that of an Imperial Guard, enveloped his body. A long hood covered most of his weathered, but handsome face. Within an alter of broken stones, each as high as a man, and arranged in a semi-circle, he knelt before a stoneware bowl filled with water.

At more than two meters tall, his long, brown hair falling around and obscuring his face, the red guard was an imposing sight to his followers. His eyes glowed slightly yellow with the the Dark Side behind them. The other adepts were draped in prisoner tunics, dyed black and tied tightly to their bodies, kneeling behind him, concentrating on unifying the Force amongst them. There were nearly a hundred of them now. They were Palpatine's prisoners, once; Force users who were sensitive to the calling of the Dark Side. Just once young boys and girls, mostly, they were mostly Human, but also Rodian, Mirialan, and Dathomiri. They had been altered however; their bodies interwoven with nano-machinery which had burrowed into their flesh and extended their carbono-durasteel tendrils into their minds.

The roof of this temple was nothing more than the sky itself; the tapestry of stars which wound around the galaxy. The floor of this sacred space in which they knelt was bare ground, covered with the dewy growth of knotted grasses. Their small altar itself was ringed by the concrete forms of what was once a city, destroyed by a savage war in ancient times which had devastated the face of the planet.

This place was a vector of the Force. The stones outlined what was once a Jedi temple, long ago, before the great city itself was fully built. The red Guardsman and his followers had wandered here from the largest secret Imperial facility in the wastes of Talinn, setting up temporary refuge in this clearing for the night. The open sky clear to the galaxy made this the perfect time and place to hold this ritual and to test their power. It was here that the Guardsman knew his group could channel the Force, and fully bond with the unity he knew they needed.

In between the periodic warm gusts of the night air, there was the squawking of the predatory bats and night birds hunting and mating in the forest of ruins above and around them. The small group of humanoids huddled, meditated, and embraced the bridge between life and death. The red guard watched the water intently through the wind-battered cloak which kept the warmth of his body from escaping into the starry night.

All the painful tortures he had endured would now prove their value. He'd suffered Lord Cronal's vile experiments with metals, poisons, and burning, all prodding him to produce a deeper, purer connection with the Dark Side. Cronal was the madman Palpatine had tasked to see to the Force users his Inquisitors had gathered. The intent was to use the Force Sensitives for their power, to process them like a butcher processes animals into edible meat. Lord Cronal told him that the plan was to break with the Sith restrictions once and for all, and to merge flesh with machine, using a small army of Force users to power the Emperor's future weapons. Synthesizing kyber crystals for the Death Star was only the start of his plans of channeling the Force to be his servant.

The criminal Force worshippers and other followers of the Jedi were rounded up, and they provided useful slaves for the Empire. But the true Force sensitives were found out and isolated, and slowly turned into something else as pieces of their bodies were unified with machines.

When the red guard held Cronal by the throat after the destruction of the Death Star at Endor, and the realization that Palpatine was dead, he'd only spared the life of that wicked little mage after he'd begged for his life and divulged his secrets. Cronal had acceded and opened the cages of the Palpatine's Dark Acolytes. Now, those secrets belonged to the new remnant of Force users who had no need for the Sith. They were the ones who were in thrall to the pure Dark Side, no longer restrained by politics or the arcane rules of Sith sorcery.

The red guard contemplated the Force, his fingers trembling with concentration and rage as they were clutched against his chest. He remembered deep in the recesses of his mind, feeling again the fire squirting through his veins.

The water shook slightly.

His broken, hoarse voice spoke again.

"The Force is loud now. There is an emptiness. The Force itself cries out. It is wandering, unchained. This water is a vessel. To the Force itself branching through all life in the Universe. Feeding on the turmoil of all life. Of rage. Of the transition to death. Of all against all."

He shouted now.

"The chaos is unleashed. It echoes inside of us. We speak through The Force. We feel its wounds. All of us. Connected as we are to other adepts in the galaxy who may sense it; we call to them. Come here. To this place. We commune here through the well of chaos in darkness never-ending. This place of once great sorrow and terror."

"Yes," spoke a female voice beside him. A tall female figure with flowing, braided yellow hair and unnervingly perfectly symmetrical features stood next to the red guard. The Dathomir priestess in a shimmering cloak which alternated between yellow and black swirling patterns, raised her head with eyes closed, shouting at a volume to match the red Guardsman, with her hands opening and closing in ritual movements. She was flanked by four of her Nightsisters, similarly attired. Unlike her improbably beautiful human appearance, they were horned, pale, and striped, as was more typical of the Dathomiri. They stood to the side smiling, as their beautiful "human" sister enchanted the followers.

"Sidious and Vader are no longer here. The Dark Side collapses on itself looking for a perch. It seethes now. It desires. It reaches out and touches us. There is no Sith. There is no Empire. There is no law. There is the Dark Side. As distant as the stars. As close as the water before us.

"It's power is no longer constrained by the gates built by the Sith. It could never be domesticated and milked. But the Sith did corral it, and it fooled them, and it moved the hands of the Sith. We kneel among their destruction, of the folly of those who thought the Dark Side was their servant. It is free now. It is All. It is glorious to behold."

The thrall of the Dark Side overcame the worshippers. Their bodies were limp. The muscle slackened, as bone and sinew slumped within them. The Force was embracing them. The Guardsman shook with his rage until he weakened, himself falling in surrender to the Dark Side's thrall. He held a yellow eye still on the bowl, gleaming from behind the shock of hair, his mouth twisted with a pained smile. His channeling had worked. They were ready.

The water began to gently boil.


	5. Chapter 5

For everyone who has ready my stories and enjoyed them: thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you all understand that I am frustrated with the limitations here. I enjoy the StarWars universe, but I am currently taking my ideas and putting them in another direction and another format. I wish I could publish this would-be trilogy and have it truly be part of the StarWars story, but I'm afraid that the Rodent Overlords are absolutely dead set on other priorities for their IP. I'm a little disappointed in what they're doing, and I have no desire to create free content within their sandbox.

I am currently writing an original novel and starting over. I'm keeping some structure of what I was going for, but of course it is going to be an entirely different setting, and all I'm really keeping is some inspiration from my own ideas I was plugging into this universe. I'm also going in a hard science direction, giving this an entirely different setting with human characters.

Thanks everyone. May the Force Be With You, and With You in Spirit.

Ðaniel Jeyn — 2020


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